


The Boy in the Infirmary

by AudreyRoscoe



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon Compliant, Events of Crisis Core, Events of Final Fantasy VII, F/M, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Shinra Company, Time Travel, relationships will be added as the story progresses - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 11:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10875837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AudreyRoscoe/pseuds/AudreyRoscoe
Summary: He took the buster sword from its place on his back and held it in front of him, reinforcing his stance. He was ready to swing the blade down onto the next machine, the next soldier or the next lost monster.What Cloud saw instead made him almost falter, his grip slipping for a split-second.The boy in front of him looked to be around 17, maybe 18. His black hair stood out in wild spikes, a little matted from his slumber on the cot. There was a plaster on his left cheek.Blue eyes darted around in confusion, mako shining brightly in them and making Cloud bristle.A SOLDIER, then. His uniform gave his rank away, too.First Class.Cloud blinked.How did he not know him if they had been the same rank?OrZack Fair gets a second chance at life, without any memory of what has happened after Angeal's death.Unfortunately, his resurrection takes place several years later - during Cloud's invasion of the Shinra Power Company.





	The Boy in the Infirmary

Cloud was sweating.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had, since the feeling of being physically exhausted felt almost foreign to him.

But inside here, the ShinRa-Power-Company, even he had trouble keeping up with the constant fleeing, fighting, the disguises and the apparent pop-quizzes that the employees loved to throw at random strangers for no reason.

Plus, there had been the 60 sets of stairs he had walked up along with Tifa and Barret to even get in here without attracting too much attention.

By now, he had almost preferred the Bulldozer-way of simply crashing the place and slashing everyone in sight – monsters or ShinRa’s people alike.

Not that he really cared about any of them anyway; not after all they had done.

 

His gaze slipped to the people he now considered his “friends”, even if, especially with Barret, he did it begrudgingly. They looked just as worn down as he was feeling.

This wasn't good. They needed to be in a better state when they really wanted to have a chance in here - and a chance to actually save Aerith.

As he kept a lookout for potential enemies, he suddenly noticed something looming up in his peripheral vision. It was a sign, littered with bold, black letters:

INFIRMARY.

Cloud immediately skidded to a halt, his heartbeat quickening.

Finally they were in luck!

 

The room was held in clinical white. There were beds, tiny drawers and a few cupboards, possibly holding some medicine for whoever was hurt during training sessions or even attacks on the ShinRa-Building. Even though Cloud could hardly imagine anyone besides them being reckless enough to actually try such a thing. 

He had almost assumed it to be empty, when he noticed the outlines of a body in the far right corner of the room.

There was a man lying on one of the cots, seemingly unconscious. 

Cloud simply ignored him and grabbed one potion from his bag instead, taking the luxury of a quick break from troops and monsters in this room to let it trickle down his throat and heal the little cuts that had already started to knit themselves back together thanks to his enhanced body functions.

He couldn’t afford any wounds that could slow him down, since they never knew what awaited them behind the next door; the Turks or the president himself - again.

As he put the now empty bottle away, the sound of a pained groan forced him to turn around in a quick motion, his senses on high-alert by the possibility of facing the next enemy. 

Maybe someone had recognized them after all?

He took the buster sword from its place on his back and held it in front of him, reinforcing his stance. He was ready to swing the blade down onto the next machine, the next soldier or the next lost monster.

What Cloud saw instead made him almost falter, his grip slipping for a split-second.

The boy in front of him looked to be around 17, maybe 18. His black hair stood out in wild spikes, a little matted from his slumber on the cot. There was a plaster on his left cheek.

Blue eyes darted around in confusion, mako shining brightly in them and making Cloud bristle. 

A SOLDIER, then. 

His uniform gave his rank away, too.

First Class.

Cloud blinked.

How did he not know him if they had been the same rank?

Maybe they had to find a quick replacement for him and simply promoted one of the fresh recruits?

The thoughts passed his mind, but they barely sparked any feeling inside of him.

He didn’t care. They could replace him all they wanted and they would keep dragging fresh meat into this hellhole. That was, until Cloud and the others found a way to stop them.

He hadn’t really cared about any of this before, happy to leave SOLDIER and ShinRa behind and live his life as a guy for everything, earning money to keep his mind occupied and making plans to settle down somewhere quiet as soon as he had gathered enough GIL to do so.

But since then, a lot of things had happened.

The quiet fog that had swirled through his mind and pressed down on almost any feelings or opinions he possibly could have had for the destruction of the planet or mako or any of this had lifted, and with that, opened the lid to the now obvious goal he had to follow before he was able to rest: Making ShinRa pay.

For AVALANCHE, for Jesse, Biggs and Wedge. Who, for all that he had tried to convince himself that they shouldn’t, did matter to him in the end.

For all the people in Sector 7, who had not known what was coming for them until the plate had crashed onto their heads, killing hundreds of them in an instant. 

And for Aerith.

The thought of her made Cloud grit his teeth and reinforce the grip on his sword. If this boy was going to try to stand between them and their rescue mission, then he would strike him down like he had done to the rest of them.

He had no mercy left for anyone that was even remotely involved in this.

The SOLDIER in front of him didn’t really seem very keen on fighting him, though. Instead, he still looked dazed, as if he had woken from a year-long nap or a possible coma.

The thought unsettled Cloud. He felt his guts twisting for a split-second, before pushing the feeling away.

No sympathies.

“Cloud?”

His whole body went rigid. The soft, confused tone of the SOLDIER’s voice pierced through his mind, as if he had yelled at him instead of speaking in a barely audible whisper.

A flare of pain surged through his head and he felt his knees hitting the ground before he even realized he was falling. His sword clattered to the ground with a loud noise and Cloud tried to see through the waves of pain that hit his head – he had to get it back, he could not lose it, it was important-!

_Why was it important?_

He dug his nails into his skull, hoping for the tension in it to fade, to keep it from splitting his bones apart. The pressure was building too quickly. 

He couldn’t think, white noise growing louder and louder; far-away voices speaking and screaming, none of which he could recognize.

There was a coppery taste in his mouth and he knew that he was biting down on his tongue, gritting his teeth, to keep the screams that threatened to tear his throat apart in. He had to be quiet, they were on a mission, a mission to-.

_Which mission?_

His mind went blank for a second and he felt someone touching his shoulder, his body tensing, his fingers clasping and unclasping. He needed to push the person of, he was being attacked, he was going to die-.

And then, everything was quiet.

 

Cloud opened his eyes to a green swirl. Was he floating?

Out of the sudden stillness came a voice and even though it was faint, the words echoed through his skull like an explosion.

_Just an empty puppet_ .

 

\--

 

Whatever he had done last night, he was not about to repeat it ever again.

His eyes were forced shut, like someone had taken a glue-stick and made sure that his eyelids would never, ever open again. Maybe that person had wanted to do him a favor, because from what he had heard, light would only make this hangover worse.

What else could it be?

His body was aching to a point where it felt almost unbearable – even to him, as a SOLDIER.

And that should probably make him feel quite pathetic, especially considering that the healing powers of mako usually prevented most of the worse symptoms before they could really hit him. 

He must have really gone over the top then.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, he suddenly remembered something else.

Something that made his stomach turn and his whole world spin, before tipping dangerously. He lurched into a sitting position, a sharp sting cutting through his brain.

He had to get to him. He had to see Angeal.

The realization dawned upon him as soon as his mind cleared up a little more.

Modeoheim.

The bath house.

The fight.

Angeal was dead. 

Zack himself had ended his life.

He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat and blinked the stinging from his eyes. There was nothing he would be able to do now, not anymore. 

He had failed him.

It was then that his mind suddenly cleared up fully, and the pain faded away with a suddenness that made Zack question if it had been there at all or if it had just been the remains of everything he had gone through yesterday. 

It was as if his body was trying to compensate his emotional suffering in some way and failing miserably.

He had to blink a few times to get his eyes to focus and it was only then that he realized where the hell he was. 

The infirmary? 

Of course. They would have wanted to check up on him after everything that had happened. Following a sudden instinct, he touched his cheek, feeling how part of his skin felt raw and tight there. Irritation flooded him as he felt the soft fabric of a plaster.

Images slowly came back to him.

Angeals sword. Grazing the left side of his face.

It had barely hurt in the heat of battle and it didn’t hurt much now, since the mako had most likely tried its best to knit the skin back together already.

Only then did he notice that he wasn’t alone in the room.

There were three people across from him, one of which he recognized immediately. 

“Cloud?”

Zack grimaced at how small his voice sounded. And that it also sounded a bit scared.

His new-found friend had been hurt pretty badly in the Modeoheim-incident and for a few moments, Zack had been worried sick that he would have to lose two friends on the same day. 

 

Distracted by the memories, Zack barely noticed how Cloud let out a pained groan and crashed to his knees, shaking hands flying up to his head.

Jumping up from his place on the cot, Zack was with him in a second, ignoring the dizziness that washed over him.

It was followed up by a weird thought, a feeling that told him he had forgotten something very, very important.

“Cloud! Cloud!”, shaking the blond's shoulder in an attempt to snap him out of it, Zack realized too late that someone had been sneaking up on him – not until he was forcefully pushed off and away from his still trembling friend.

“Hey!”

The person who had basically attacked him was a dark-haired woman. She was beautiful and emanated an aura of absolute control and power, even if her stance was more than a little defensive. Her dark eyes were focused on him and even though she looked like she was trying to appear calm and collected, Zack realized that her expression was one of complete bewilderment.

“Zack? Is that you?”

Huh? How the hell did she know him?

“How did you survive?”, she asked, her voice desperately firm, though she paled more and more the longer she looked at him.

“I thought he killed you”, the woman continued despite Zacks growing confusion, her voice dropping to a scared whisper, as if the words alone would summon some angry spirit on a quest to kill them all.

Zack just stared at her. Turning around, he checked if she was really talking to him.

Who should have killed him?

Angeal?

But how did this woman, who he had never seen before – not here in the ShinRa building, nor anywhere else -, know that they had fought?

“What are you talking about?”

He couldn't keep the tension out of his voice because frankly, this whole scene was freaking him out. And she was still not letting him get through Cloud, who had gone eerily still and quiet.

If this continued, he would have to find a way to send her back to wherever the hell she came from real quick!

The woman looked at him again, as if she wanted to make sure that he was really there and not some hallucination. It made the hair at the back of his neck stand up.

It was then that she finally decided to answer him. A one-worded answer that made Zack's heart skip a beat.

“Sephiroth.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome!  
> This story somehow came to me while I re-played Final Fantasy VII. I got to the part where the group takes a rest in the infirmary and well...  
> The beginning might seem a bit confusing but I promise that everything will clear up while the story continues.  
> Also please inform me if there are any inaccuracies!
> 
>  
> 
> I would love to read your opinion so comments are very much appreciated! <3
> 
> If you want to, you can say hi on [tumblr](http://caslikesthemaccarena.tumblr.com/)!


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